For someone who has been a regular buyer of a particular product or service, it is no longer surprising if they go to a certain vendor for their needs. Spanning across different industries, it can be said that being a regular customer sometimes has its advantages as you can be given discounts, free and complimentary items, and many different others. The business process outsourcing industry is of no exception to this situation. One can notice that when companies need a particular type of process done, most of the time, they already have an outsourcing solutions provider in mind. Reasons for this could vary because it is possible that such outsourcing solutions provider is actually known for that particular service or simply because business owners have already built a relationship with them as they have tapped their services before. However, with the outsourcing industry, advantages do not come in the form of free and complimentary items but there are still other means available, one of which is to offer discounts.

Business process outsourcing solutions providers are usually looking for the best place to host their services from, and it is in fact the reason why there are actually countries that push to become the top outsourcing destination. In fact, countries are exhausting all possible measures, including seeking assistance from each of their own governments, to become the destination that comes to companies’ minds when thinking of outsourcing parts, if not all, of their operations or administrative tasks. But one can notice that for every channel in the outsourcing industry, there is a particular country that is being scouted; for example, Philippines springs to mind when companies are looking to outsource their customer service, mainly because the Philippines is now regarded as the top destination for call center needs.

Outsourcing companies specifically offering services catering to governments and its units have started the year off with multiple contracts being signed.  Particularly, IT and business process solutions providers, the Computer Sciences Corporation and CGI have announced numerous contract signings among government units since the first of January, and business does not seem to be waning for these companies.

With a recent acquisition and two new contracts signed and another two possibly in the works, TCS (NSE: TCS.NS) UK subsidiary, Diligenta, is expecting a positive run for the months ahead.

The United States Agency for International Affairs or USAID, in a controversial move, has decided to fund the development of Sri Lanka’s, as well as Armenia’s offshore outsourcing industry.

In an aggressive attempt of major technology manufacturing firms to diversify its markets for more consistent revenue streams, they have been buying and bidding for business process outsourcing services firms.

India has long been the dominant country when it comes to Business Process Outsourcing (BPO), however, times have changed.  The National Outsourcing Association (NOA) published a report titled “Best Practice Outsourcing and Offshoring” which pointed the issue Indian offshore providers face –increasing operational costs forcing some providers to relocate their centers to cheaper areas in India in order to compete more effectively, although this move has not hindered a recent surge in emerging outsourcing destinations. “Despite recent optimistic predictions from the NASSCOM conference, India is experiencing the effects of a global slowdown and a reduction in IT spending.  Costs for Indian vendors are also on the up.” –NOA report. Indian BPO providers may not be the only ones experiencing increasing operational costs, other offshore providers experience this as well but at a lesser extent as countries such as the Philippines receive strong government support.